Thursday, December 02, 2010

Notwithstanding the commonly held perception that the United States has enacted only one legalization program in its history -- through the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) -- programs to legalize the status of unauthorized immigrants have been an enduring and necessary feature of US immigration law and policy since the nation's first quota restrictions in the 1920s.

With one exception (IRCA), these programs have targeted discrete groups of unauthorized or temporary residents, through population-specific programs and through "registry" programs that cover very long-term unauthorized immigrants. In the current political and policy context, the DREAM Act and AgJobs fall in the category of population-specific legalization proposals.

In a new report out today, More than IRCA: US Legalization Programs and the Current Policy Debate, Migration Policy Institute (MPI) Vice President for Programs Donald M. Kerwin provides an historical overview and yearly data on US legalization programs, a discussion of the current debate over the nation's estimated 11 million unauthorized immigrants, and a primer on the statutory language used to describe the differing types of legalization programs.

The analysis shows that even since 1986, more immigrants have legalized through population-specific and registry programs than through IRCA's general legalization provisions, the only program of its kind in US history. The IRCA general legalization program (as distinguished from its three population-specific legalization programs) granted legal status to 1.6 million unauthorized immigrants; in contrast, a conservative count finds that more than 2.1 million persons were legalized through the major population-specific and registry provisions since 1986, and a far higher number since the 1920s.

This report is the second in an MPI series on how to shape and administer a legalization program, with the intent of providing solutions for some of the most important issues that policymakers in Congress and the administration would need to consider in designing and implementing effective legislation. The first, Structuring and Implementing an Immigrant Legalization Program: Registration as the First Step, argues that an essential first step to any legalization should be a registration process that rapidly identifies, screens, and processes potential applicants -- both to enhance public safety and national security while also allowing qualified applicants to live and work legally in the United States as they attempt to earn legal permanent status and to integrate into society.

Additional papers in the series will analyze how various unauthorized populations would fare under differing legislative scenarios, legal issues in structuring successful legislation, and the role of states and localities in implementing such a program.